NFU Blog

The National Farmers Union Foundation is awarding $500 scholarships to six recipients of the 2008 Stanley Moore Scholarship.

For six weeks the 2008 scholarship recipients will be the weekly member profile. This is the final profile of the series.

For 12 years, Jared Whitcomb and his parents Matthew and Connie have been involved in Farmers Union. Jared attended Farmers Union local and state camps, as a camper and later as a counselor.  In 2006, he attended NFU All-States Leadership Camp, where he was elected to the NYAC. This year he attended the College Conference on Cooperatives, co-hosted by NFU.

During last year’s Kansas Farmers Union Convention, Whitcomb was elected as a delegate to the NFU Convention and was appointed by NFU President Tom Buis to serve on the Credentials and Elections Committee.

Whitcomb attends Kansas State University, where he is majoring in animal sciences and industry in the area of production management. He transferred to KSU from Hutchinson Community College, where he played varsity football and achieved Academic All-American.

The National Farmers Union Foundation is awarding $500 scholarships to six recipients of the 2008 Stanley Moore Scholarship.

For six weeks the 2008 scholarship recipients will be the weekly member profile.

Ryan Soren is the son of Wayne and Vicki Soren, who have been involved with Farmers Union for more than 25 years. The family has attended every state Farmers Union convention since Ryan was born. He attended local, county, district and state Farmers Union camps as a camper and a counselor. He also earned the SDFU Torchbearer Award and attended NFU All-States Leadership Camp, where he was elected to the National Youth Advisory Council.

He has already earned an associate’s degree in automotive technology and is currently pursuing an associate’s degree in automotive body repair and a certificate in entrepreneurship at the Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Neb. He hopes to one day own his own automotive restoration shop and a small sheep farm in a rural area.

Ryan is from Lake Preston, S.D

The National Farmers Union Foundation is awarding $500 scholarships to six recipients of the 2008 Stanley Moore Scholarship.

For the next six weeks the 2008 scholarship recipients will be the weekly member profile.

Cyndi Schumacher, her parents Gary and Kristy Schumacher, and seven siblings, have been active in Farmers Union for the past six years. Cyndi has attended junior day camps, award nights and summer camp, and recently obtained her Farmers Union Torchbearer Award.

In high school, Cyndi has been active in Student Council, Future Business Leaders of America, National Honor Society, volleyball, basketball, track, and band. She was also a vice president of her class for the past two years.

She plans to use the scholarship to help achieve her goal of becoming a first-generation family member to receive a bachelor’s degree. She will be attending Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah, in the fall to obtain her nursing degree.

Cyndi is from Peetz, Colorado.

The National Farmers Union Foundation is awarding $500 scholarships to six recipients of the 2008 Stanley Moore Scholarship.

For the next six weeks the 2008 scholarship recipients will be the weekly member profile.

Leonard Polzin is the son of George and Marie Polzin, who have been involved with Farmers Union for more than 50 years. Leonard has served on the Wisconsin Farmers Union Resolutions and Bylaws Committees, has participated in a NFU Washington Fly-In, has been a delegate to the NFU Convention and has served as a WFU camp counselor.

Polzin is working on his bachelor’s degree in dairy science with a management emphasis and a minor in agricultural business at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He is also involved in several campus groups including the Agricultural Education Society, in which he has served as an officer and on its collegiate debate team. He is an active member of the UWRF Dairy Club, Poultry Club and the honorary agricultural fraternity Alpha Zeta

The National Farmers Union Foundation is awarding $500 scholarships to six recipients of the 2008 Stanley Moore Scholarship.

For the next six weeks the 2008 scholarship recipients will be the weekly member profile.

Kyle Danzinger grew up working on his family dairy farm with his parents Donald and Jackie, who have been involved with Farmers Union for 40 years. He currently serves on the Wisconsin Farmers Union Senior Youth Advisory Council as well as the National Farmers Union Youth Advisory Council.

Danzinger is also very involved with FFA, Student Council, choir, mentoring, Pep-Club, his church youth group and various community service projects.

He will use the NFU Foundation scholarship for tuition and books as he studies agricultural education and dairy science at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls this fall. He plans to become an agricultural teacher at an area high school while operating a small dairy or beef operation on or near his family’s farm.

Kyle is from Durand, Wis.

By Kale Van Bruggen, NFU DC Summer Intern

“Change” is a word being used a lot in this year’s presidential campaigns, but North Dakota Farmers Union member Ellen Linderman doesn’t talk about change, she embraces it.

Ellen began farming with her husband Charles, who had been an active Farmers Union member his entire life, in 1976. As their 3 children grew up in the NDFU youth program, Ellen began serving as a Foster county youth leader, which she continued to do for nearly for nearly 20 years.

She continued her involvement on NDFU’s policy and action committee. “I enjoy the policy discussions. These are so important to the family farmers out here,” she said. “Farmers Union is the ultimate in grassroots organizations.”

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Chuck Groth grew up in “the big white house on the hill” northwest of Grand Forks, N.D. A lifelong Farmers Union member, Chuck recently retired from South Dakota Farmers Union after 34 years of service, having served as the director of the SDFU Foundation’s Cooperative Legacy Project, an oral history analysis of the development of cooperatives and of those individuals behind them. He was previously the organization’s communications director and under his leadership wrote and published more than 300 issues of SDFU’s monthly Union Farmer. Chuck was recently profiled in the Huron Daily Plainsman.

Groth retires from South Dakota Farmers Union after 34 years

Chuck Groth vividly remembers the sea of faces on the Pierre hill between Riggs High School and the state Capitol during a rally over a crisis in farm country.

“That was in the midst of the last collapse in farmland values which resulted in a lot of people facing the loss of their farms,” he said.

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By Maria Miller, Ohio Farmers Union

Working on a family farm has its advantages and it has its challenges, according to Ohio Farmers Union member Brian Schlatter, whose new cheese business, Canal Junction Farmstead Cheese, has become part of the family’s larger whole, Canal Junction (C/J) Natural Meats and Dairy. Brian’s family, including parents Ralph and Sheila Schaltter, have operated their direct market at their farm store since 1993.

The business near Defiance, Ohio boasts meat and dairy products raised on pesticide and herbicide-free grasses and legumes.

“It is a sustainable way to farm in addition to providing a way to help preserve the rapidly disappearing American family farm,” said 22-year-old Schlatter. “The most important thing for the consumer is that the end result is a better food product.”

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It has been an exciting time to be in Washington, D.C. and seeing first hand the farm bill process continue over the past few months; I have learned so much about agricultural policy and the way that it impacts U.S. producers. At school, my major is international relations, so at NFU, I was able to see how the international trade issues that I studied in the classroom related to agriculture and my roots on the farm at home. At NFU, I had a chance to attend Congressional committee hearings, farm bill conference meetings and also help with a press conference. One of the highlights of this semester was going to the NFU convention in Las Vegas in March. I truly enjoyed my experience here and am glad that I had the opportunity to intern at NFU.

Ashley Peppler is from Mead, Colorado and attends American University in Washington, D.C.

Eden Peart is not a native Hawaiian, but she’s been living there so long it’s hard to tell. Eden grew up in Eureka, Calif., but has been on the “Big Island” for twenty-four years. She attended college in Eureka and has been involved in agriculture in various capacities in both Hawaii and California since she was eighteen.

On her fourteen acres in Honoka’a, Eden grows native and endemic trees, as well as traditional Hawaiian crops including sweet potatoes, passion fruit, bananas, mangos, avocados, coconuts, coffee, cacao, citrus and taro. Taro is also known as kalo, the traditional staple root of Polynesia, which is considered an ancestor of Hawaiian people. Eden also grows Inga trees, also known as ice cream bean trees because they often have edible seeds that resemble vanilla ice cream in flavor. Ingas are a fabulous nitrogen-fixing tree native to the Amazon that provide a fine shade canopy for coffee, cacao and other tropical crops. Eden also hopes to soon expand into some organic flower and herb production.

While Hawaii Farmers Union is still in its infant stages, Eden has been a National Farmers Union member-at-large for several years. As she became more familiar with agricultural issues and about sustainability issues affecting all family farmers in Hawaii through the development of her own farm, she felt she needed to bring the perspective and resources of the Farmers Union to her state.

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